In this country, even the right to the last rites has become embroiled in the dynamics of power. Power is another name for the law, for ultimately the law - both civil and divine - is enacted by those in power.

In the case of the late M Moorthy, did the law take into account the plight and anguish of a Hindu wife and mother who is told by strangers that she cannot perform the last rites of her deceased husband as he had purportedly changed God?

She goes to the civil court for relief but the court is on vacation and her case is fixed for mention on a later date. In the meantime, the strangers go to the Syariah Court where the wife has no right of audience, and within an hour of ex-parte hearing, are able to procure an order giving them the right to the last rites.

Now when the civil court later sits, it pronounces it cannot go behind the Syariah Court order although that order has adversely affected the rights of the widow. In the upshot then, the civil court in reliance upon the ex-parte Syariah order procured without hearing her, refuses her relief, again without hearing her on the merits.

Confidence in any system of justice can only be premised on the underlying principle that for any substantive right, there must be a remedy. In this case, what is the remedy for the grieving wife and family?

The adjudication of rights to be determined in the forum of parallel or even competing courts cannot be reduced to a race to the finishing line. Trophies may be won where nobody else played.

So in this case, the widow's undisputed and unchallenged affidavit evidence that her husband till the time of his death was a practising Hindu who had publicly participated in the Thaipusam festival at Batu Caves and who was further featured on national television for the Hindu Deepavali festival as late as November 2005, was not adjudicated upon the merits and instead cognisance was given to the Syariah order.

Neither did the civil court consider the question why the purported conversion was shrouded in surreptitious secrecy, and conveyed to the wife only when her husband was comatose and dying.

Why, one might ask, should a conversion to Islam be at least published to the non-converting spouse and family? Because by law the rights of the unknowing and non-converting spouse and family are directly affected in terms of inheritance, the eligibility to divorce and care, and custody of children. And secrecy followed by sudden disclosure by strangers of the alleged conversion of the deceased can only bring confusion, doubt and despair as in this case.

As a result, the decision by the court cannot be said to have accomplished closure to the grieving family, relatives, friends and the Hindu community but will continue to be a source of cynicism and scepticism about fairness and justice of law.

At the heart of this sorry and tragic case is the question whether the courts are the proper forum to adjudicate issues concerning religion and faith or whether it would be better achieved through an advisory interfaith commission comprising all the major faiths in our plural society.

The author is executive committee member of the National Human Rights Society (Hakam).